“No,” Myrsos said regretfully, which made Sostratos think him honest. “I will say, though, that physicians often use honey in their medicines, to hide the nasty taste of herbs and such. You might ask one. Some will use the cheapest, of course, but others will want to have the best.”

“That’s a good idea,” Sostratos said, and gave him the money.

He went back to Iphikrates’ house the next morning. The man had bought the best balsam; he might well use the best honey, too. “Hail, best one,” Iphikrates said. “I just prepared a first-rate salve for hemorrhoids.”

“Lucky you,” Sostratos murmured.

“There’s no part of the body that can’t go wrong,” the physician said. “What brings you back here? Have you figured out some new way to pry silver out of me? I warn you, it won’t be easy. I haven’t got a whole lot more to spend.”

“As a matter of fact, no,” Sostratos answered. “I was wondering if you use Hymettos honey-and, if you do, from whom you buy it.”

“Ah.” Iphikrates dipped his head. “Now I understand. Yes, I do use Hymettos honey. It costs more than honey from other places, but the flavor is worth it. So you think it’s worth exporting, too, do you?”

“If I can get a decent price for it,” Sostratos said. “Who sells it to you?”

“A fellow named Erasinides son of Hippomakhos,” Iphikrates answered. “He keeps bees over by the mountain, and doesn’t come into the polis all that often. You can either wait for him and hope he does, or else go out and pay a call on him. If you go, you’ll want to take some people with you to carry back the jars of honey, or else hire a donkey.”

“Oh, yes,” the Rhodian said with a smile. “I do know something about that.”

Iphikrates chuckled. “I suppose you might. Probably more fun than making a salve to smear on somebody’s poor, sore prokton, too.”

“I hope you don’t use honey from Hymettos in that,” Sostratos said.

“Well, no,” the physician replied. “Not much point to it. Although, considering how some people who come to see me get their hemorrhoids…”

“Never mind,” Sostratos said hastily. Iphikrates laughed out loud. Sostratos went on, “Tell me whereabouts along the mountain this Erasinides lives. I’d rather not spend hours wandering the slopes calling out his name.” He made Iphikrates repeat the directions several times to be sure he had them straight.

As in any city, plenty of men in Athens hired donkeys by the day. Sostratos arranged that afternoon to pick one up early the next morning. For an extra couple of oboloi, the Athenian who owned the animal agreed to let him use some baskets with lids he could tie down and enough rope to lash them to the donkey.

“I’m used to tying knots aboard ship,” Sostratos said. “This will be something different.”

“You’ll manage.” The man with the donkey sounded confident. Of course he sounds confident, Sostratos thought. He wants to make sure he gets as much money out of me as he can.

The Rhodian took the donkey as the sun was just beginning to touch the buildings on the akropolis. The owner even helped him fasten the baskets to the animal. When he tugged at the lead rope, the donkey brayed out a complaint, but it came along.

It kept complaining all the way through the city and out into the countryside. Sostratos grew sick of its bellows and brays. He thought about whacking it, but feared that would only make it louder, so he refrained. A man leading a quiet donkey from Mount Hymettos toward the city grinned at him as they passed and said, “Enjoy your songbird.”

“Thanks,” Sostratos answered sourly. The horrible noise spoiled his delight in what would have been a pleasant walk.

Mount Hymettos lay about thirty stadia southeast of Athens: an hour’s journey. With the donkey being obstinate and loud, it seemed three times as long to Sostratos. He hardly noticed the fine, warm morning, the neat vineyards, the olive groves with fruit steadily ripening, the watered garden plots full of every sort of vegetable.

As the road began to climb, the donkey complained more and more. Finally even Sostratos, a patient man, had had enough. He picked up a stout branch that had lallen from an olive tree, broke off a few twigs, and whacked the branch into the palm of his hand. The donkey was far from young. It must have seen that gesture before, for it suddenly fell silent. Sostratos smiled. He kept on carrying the stick. The donkey kept on being quiet.

By what Iphikrates had said, Erasinides lived about halfway up the mountain, not far from the marble quarries that were Hymettos’ other claim to fame. Sostratos looked for a Herm cut from red stone at a crossroads, and let out a sigh of relief when he spotted the pillar with Hermes’ face and genitals carved on it. “Up this road to the left,” he told the donkey. It didn’t like going up, but the threat of the stick kept it from making a big fuss.

Faint in the distance, the sound of picks clanging on stone came to the Rhodian’s ears. Someone shouted. Sostratos couldn’t make out the words, but recognized the tone; that was a boss giving workers orders. Some things didn’t change no matter where you were, or in what trade. Even in Ioudaia, where the very language was different, people in charge sounded just as peremptory, just as impatient, as they did in Hellas.

Brush and scrub lined the track-it hardly deserved the name of road any more. Every now and then, it opened out to show a farm. The farther away from the main road out of Athens Sostratos got, the smaller and meaner the farms seemed. The Rhodian wondered how many generations of men had worked them. As many as there are, he thought, no fewer.

Bees buzzed. At first, Sostratos hardly noticed. When he did, he grinned: he took them as a sign he’d come to the right place. He also wondered what nectar they found to sip in this sun-blasted summer, when most of the fields and meadows were yellow and dry. Something, he supposed, or the bees wouldn’t have been out at all.

Another shabby little farm, this one with only a tumbledown ruin of a barn. Just a couple of stadia to go to Erasinides’ place-if I’m on the right track. I think I am. Zeus, I hope I am. And then Sostratos forgot about bees, about honey, about Erasinides-about everything except the hound baying like a wolf as it loped toward him. It wasn’t much smaller than a wolf, either, and no tamer.

The donkey let out a squealing bray that Sostratos forgave. It jerked the lead rope out of his hand and started to run. The dog, though, paid no attention to it. The dog wanted Sostratos. Maybe it thought he was coming to rob the farm. Or maybe it simply craved the taste of human flesh. He wouldn’t have been surprised, not with those great yellow teeth and that wide, red, slavering mouth.

If he ran like the donkey, the hound would pull him down from behind. Only his certainty of that kept him from turning and fleeing. Instead, he set himself, hefting the stick he’d picked up to beat the donkey. One chance, he told himself. That’s all I get.

Baying, the dog sprang at him. He swung with all his might-and caught it right on the end of the nose. Those fearsome, deep-throated howls changed as if by magic to yips of agony.

“Here, you polluted monster!” Sostratos shouted. “See how you like it!” He walloped the hound again, this time in the ribs.

Now yelping, the dog ran from Sostratos faster than it had run toward him. Now furious, he ran after it. When he saw he wasn’t going to catch it, he bent down, picked up a rock, and threw it. It caught the dog in the rump and brought forth another shrill howl of pain.

“Here now! What do you think you’re doing?” A farmer came out of the house, brandishing a staff.

“Driving away your gods-detested hound.” Sostratos picked up his stick again. He was angry enough to be ready for a fight if the other man wanted one. “That’s what you get for letting the monster run loose. If it comes at me again on my way back to Athens, I’ll kill it.”